H.— ANTHROPOLOGY. 145 



chronological, and can never become so, unless where it touches the 

 domain of record, and by this contact acquires an accidental feature which 

 is foreign to its character.' Applying this method rigidly, not merely to 

 the prehistoric objects in the National Museum and elsewhere, but also 

 to the widely scattered structural remains, with many of which he was 

 personally acquainted and some of which he had himself excavated, he 

 built up, without extraneous aid of any kind, a framework into which 

 he was able to fit the whole of his materials in such a way that each 

 appeared in its proper sequence and carried its proper significance. 



As might have been expected, it turned out that the pre-history of 

 Scotland has much, very much, in common with the pre-history of other 

 areas. But it also turned out that the country contains groups of monu- 

 ments and classes of archaeological objects, to which no parallel can be 

 adduced from any other part of the world. Scotland, in a word, has an 

 archaeology of its own. The Scottish brochs, for instance — those strange 

 towers of dry-built stone with chambers in the thickness of the wall and 

 no opening towards the outside save a very narrow doorway — are peculiar 

 to the area. Hardly less characteristic is one of the principal varieties 

 of Scottish earth-house. Similarly the so-called ' Pictish ' symbols on the 

 sculptured stones stand quite alone, as do the heavy silver chains on 

 which they occasionally appear, and the massive bronze armlets and 

 carved stone balls of a somewhat earlier age. Finally, as regards the 

 archaeological material generally, Scotland enjoys in one important respect 

 a distinct advantage over her southern neighbour. Her mediaeval monu- 

 ments may always have been relatively few and inconspicuous. Certainly 

 her castles and her abbeys and her cathedrals have too often suffered 

 grievously from hands that were bent on malicious and wilful destruction. 

 But her prehistoric remains are extraordinarily numerous and, ruinous 

 as the condition of many of them is, they are not seldom sufficiently well 

 preserved to offer a rich field for scientific investigation. 



The first thing needful is a proper survey of the ground. That is 

 being carefully, if slowly, carried out by the Ancient Monuments Com- 

 mission, who have already dealt with several of the districts that are of 

 most interest to the student from the prehistoric point of view. The 

 reports on Sutherland, Caithness, Galloway, Skye and the Outer Isles 

 have all been published. Orkney and Shetland are under examination 

 now. Argyll and Bute, Aberdeen and Kincardine, Peebles and Roxburgh 

 will follow in due course. When these have been completed a long step 

 forward will have been taken. But something more than a proper survey 

 is required. It should be accompanied by systematic and well-directed 

 excavation. How much we might expect to learn in this way you may 

 gather from Mr. Callander's account of the harvest that has been reaped 

 by isolated individual effort. Only in one sector has there as yet been 

 any approach to an organised attack, but the results obtained there are 

 surely of good omen. Within the last thirty or forty years, thanks to 

 the enterprises carried out by the Society of Antiquaries and the Glasgow 

 Archaeological Society, the story of the Roman occupation of Scotland 

 has been largely rewritten. Much remains to be done. But to those of 

 us who can recall the days before 1890, the transformation that has been 

 wrought is remarkable. 



1928 J. 



